


Stuck In Place

by ThatSeance



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 15, Sam as a witch aka an icon, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Spell Failure, Spells & Enchantments, The logistics of spells, Witch Sam Winchester, Witchcraft, rowena/sam if you really really squint, sam and impurity, spellwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSeance/pseuds/ThatSeance
Summary: When Sam had first begun to do witchcraft, he hadn't really considered it witchcraft; a little spell here and there wasn't witchcraft, because it helped him and his brother, and anyone who did witchcraft did harm to others. They hunted witches, and therefore, Sam couldn't really be one.That was, until it became what saves him and others. Suddenly, it's all he's ever known.Sam hasn't seen his brother in over two years when a spell malfunctions and he's transported back to the bunker he once called home. Between a mysterious stalker, an experimental spell gone wrong, and the fractured relationship he has with his brother, Sam learns what magic can and can't do for him in this world.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Rowena MacLeod & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Stuck In Place

**Author's Note:**

> Witch Sam has occupied my mind ever since 15x03 and it's all I've wanted to write about since. So here it is.
> 
> This is going to be a four or five chapter fic in which I explore both Sam's magical potential and the effects that has on his surroundings. Not all angst! This is not a sad fic! 
> 
> Also, if any of you out there know Latin, I will go ahead and apologize because the Latin in this is butchered to hell and back. I even took Latin for 4 years but do I remember any of it? No.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The room, at first, is quiet. There's a creak of floorboards or the sound of stone grinding against stone, but it's done to be as silent, as invisible, as possible. There's a soft glow to the room, and to the average eye there was nothing else strange about it; chests and drawers, lit by candles, but there was hardly anything sitting out. A large carpet was sprawled across the floor. A small table sat in the middle of the room, but that was hardly abnormal. The strangest part of the room, really, was the man in it. 

He seems as if he were two sizes too large for the room, appearing to stoop downwards even though the ceiling was just tall enough to contain him. He crowds around the table in the middle of the room, which supports a large bowl. Inside it are what truly made the room strange: ingredients, varying between a grey powder to small wood chips to a sickly brown syrup. The man strikes a match against the side of the table and begins to whisper under his breath an incantation. 

_ Abscondo hic spacium ab nocere. _

The man drops the match into the bowl and it bursts into flames just before the banging against the door begins. The man glances up, eyes wide, as he repeats the incantation. Someone outside the room seems to be shouting something, but the sound is muffled through the door. The man stays occupied with the spell until, in his panic to grab something to the side of the table, he knocks the bowl over onto the ground. The sound is muted by the carpet, but the metal hitting the ground still seems deafening. He stands there, hands still frozen in position, staring at the bowl that has now spilled its contents across the carpet before mumbling under his breath, "Shit". 

The knocking against the door grows louder as the man glances frantically around the room, and small waves of red light appear in the cracks of the doorway. The man bolts over to a dresser and yanks open drawers, revealing their contents, various mixtures of sands and ash and dirt, shells and skulls and stones, herbs and strange liquids and multitudes of strings. He keeps searching the drawers, growing more frantic as something seemed to evade him, before he freezes, digging his fingers under colorful drawstring bags to pull out an ancient-looking book, yellowed and creaky in its old age. He grins and slams it onto the table, knocking over some of the previous ingredients. He frantically flips through the pages, grunting in frustration as he combs through more and more of the book. Every few seconds his eyes flick upwards towards the red light which encroaches on the room more as time passes. 

The moment he finds the page he's looking for, the man darts across the room, gathering ingredients with the fervor of a man with a breakthrough. Under his breath, he speaks, "I'll have to make some changes, but she did leave enough,  _ hopefully _ . There's only one way to find out."

For a moment he hesitates in front of a clear cabinet, staring inside at the glowing blue contents, but he quickly unlatches the case and pulls out a vial of the silvery-blue smoke. He uncorks it and pours it into the bowl with the rest of his amassed ingredients, before he bends down to pick up his knife from the ground. Without a pause, he presses the blade of the knife into his hand and squeezes his fist over the bowl. For the second time, this time staring down at the page, he takes a deep breath, and begins to recite an incantation, voice booming in the room. 

_ Tracio meus corporis atque animus ad meus originis. _

The bowl begins to pour out smoke, pooling around the man's feet as he continues to squeeze his blood into the bowl. He whispers it one more time before the smoke darts over to the wall behind him, completely covering it in grey. The man lifts his hand and presses his other thumb into his palm, glancing back around at his meager possessions. The red from under the doorway is beginning to melt what is around it, including the door itself. The man takes one more look at the room around him, lingering on the glass case, before approaching the thick smoke behind him. The smoke reaches out towards him to meet him, as if it were trying to wrap around him, and the man turns around just in time to see someone burst through the door. The man's face turns into both a grimace and a smile, and just before his face is swallowed by the smoke, he sticks his hand forward and whispers,  _ Rumpere _ .

* * *

When Sam had first begun to do witchcraft, he hadn't really considered it witchcraft; a little spell here and there wasn't  _ witchcraft _ , because it helped him and his brother, and anyone who did  _ witchcraft _ did harm to others. They hunted witches, and therefore, Sam couldn't really be one. And sure, he'd always toed the line between magic and not, between being psychic and his demon powers, but those had ultimately become negative forces in his life, therefore driving him away from the concept of magic as something that was  _ good _ or  _ interesting _ . 

That was until he and his brother discovered the men of letters bunker. That was until he meticulously scoured through as many of the books he could find and catalogued each and every one. That was until he discovered that his ancestors, the men of letters, the massive organization he was a  _ legacy _ to, were avid magic users and collectors. 

It was something he never would have admitted to Dean, but a significant portion of his time cataloguing was actually spent pouring over the books describing the magical experiments the men of letters devised, or listening to the tapes of these experiments, which always led to eagerly digesting magical lore books that appeared as footnotes within the notes left behind. Within the first few months of inhabiting the bunker, Sam knew more about magic than most of the witches they had encountered- and killed- before. 

That was the thought that seemed to break him out of his obsession for a while. Witches were something they killed. As deep as his fascination with magic went, with both the scientific curiosity of the machinations of magic and the spiritual fulfillment it seemed to bring, he couldn't dive any deeper for fear of this becoming one of his many mistakes. His past painted the picture pretty clearly for him; he's not very good at telling the difference between useful skills and the most convenient ones. 

So he keeps on the straight-and-narrow, doing basic spells when a case requires it, and only opening those old lore books late at night when Dean can't see.

* * *

He coughs when he breaks through the other side of the smoke, his eyes squeezing shut as it burns all the way down to his chest. He waves it away from his face before he blinks his eyes open, trying to see through the water collected in them. He is standing between two cars, dated to the mid-1950s, but it still takes him a second to recognize where he is. His mouth opens as he takes in a small, gasp-like breath. The smoke around him is slowly dissipating, leaving him, by himself, in the bunker's garage. 

The first step forward is a little hesitant, a little like a baby deer trying to walk on its own for the first time, before the man gains his footing and strides through the garage towards the first doorway he sees. Pulling open that door, he looks upwards to the stairway leading up into what he knows is the hallway. At this, he stops to lean on the doorframe. Conflict paints itself across his face before he squares his shoulders and begins the climb up the stairway. 

When he reaches the hallway, the man glances back and forth to each side. Eventually, he turns left, and his eyes continue to search the doors for something. The hallway seems to stretch farther with each step, until the man reaches the opening that leads into the front room. He glances around within it, seemingly trying to find someone, before he locks eyes with the door at the top of the stairs. His feet quickly carry him towards it, and he only stops to turn around for a moment once he's already at the doorway. The room, to the average eye, doesn't seem to hold anything special other than various books and strange technology, but there's something in the man's face that makes it seem like he wants to stay. After a few seconds, he shakes his head to himself, and unlatches the door before escaping the bunker into the night.

At first, the night is refreshing, and the first look up at the sky has him sucking in a breath. It's pitch black, without a light for at least a mile or two, and therefore the stars are out in their full glory. The awe lasts for a good minute before the man interrupts it by coughing into his elbow. However, it doesn't end, and he collapses onto his knees as he continues to cough. He frantically pats at his jacket and pants pockets, digging deep and turning them inside out, seeming to search for something. He slowly collapses further onto the ground, grasping at the concrete below him and gasping out breaths, before he loses consciousness in the night. 

* * *

Sam officially lost his will to resist when the Book of the Damned came into play. Unofficially, it was long before that, long before even the bunker, but it was easier to place both a specific and easy to digest time stamp on this transition in his life. Really, it was mostly Rowena's fault, as Sam spent progressively more time making or breaking certain spells to help or inhibit her. 

There was something that called to him deep within those books and spells. It was akin to the deep longing he'd felt his whole life, that drew him down paths he felt ashamed to admit, except it didn't feel so much like a dirty secret. It was a part of him. Performing spells made him feel  _ safe _ . They, for the first time in his life, made him feel  _ at home _ . 

Rowena died, and then came back. And then there they were, in the impala, and it was as if he'd unlocked a part of himself that he'd buried in a box six feet into his chest. Lucifer, the ever-present destructive force, had finally connected the dots for him, finally created a motivating force. He'd already had the pull, but Lucifer was the  _ push _ . The spells were at his hands. He had a way to protect himself. He had a way to protect  _ everyone _ . 

And when Sam gave Rowena the spell, it felt less like pity and more like a  _ thank you, for waking me up _ .

* * *

The man wheezes in a breath as his eyes flutter rapidly. He's laying against his side on the cold floor, and he turns onto his back, his limbs awkwardly stretched across the floor. He peels his eyes open only to meet the cold gaze of another man standing above him. Dean.

"Sam."

Sam stares up at Dean, who hasn't changed a bit since the day they parted, except for a scruffy beard and a filled-out torso, long past the days of half-starving and overworking his body to death. He looks good, and Sam can't imagine what he looks like in contrast, skinnier than he's ever been and hair long enough to pull into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. The other man seems to be analyzing him, eyes darting between his face and down to his body, as if he were trying to piece two different images together. Sam places his arms on either side of his torso and lifts himself up, grunting as a sharp ache splits down his side. He's sitting on the floor, and he opens his mouth, about to improvise to fill the silence, when Dean begins before him, eyebrows drawn down in a dark line. "It's good to see you Sammy, but, w hat are you doing here?"

Sam grimaces, eyes darting around at the shelves of books around him. "A… spell gone wrong. Sort of."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Sort of?"

"It's a long story."

There's a long moment of silence. Dean seems to hover somewhere between wanting to ask more and wanting Sam to get out of his sight. Sam's not sure which one he dreads more.

"Well, c'mon, what's going on? Do you need help or something?" Dean says after a while, reaching out a hand towards Sam. Sam stares at it for a long moment before using it to haul himself up, wincing and leaning against a table as his body protests.

"It's… well." Sam contemplates telling the truth. He does need help, in a way, but he remembers the last time he needed help, and he doesn't know how Dean will react. He fears the same reaction. "There's someone after me. And I used a... spell to get away, but well…"

"You ended up here." 

"It's more complicated than that." Sam leans against the table behind him. "The… spell. It was… experimental, to put it lightly. I've been creating it for a while, but-"

"Wait, hold on," Dean interrupts, lifting a hand, "You created it?"

Sam lets out a little wheeze of a laugh. It's awkward even to his ears. "It's been a while since we've seen each other."

"It's just that's…"

"A whole 'nother leap?"

"Yeah."

".... Well, it wasn't entirely me. It was started by Rowena, before she…" Sam coughs. "Anyways. The spell, it uh, I'd never gotten the chance to try it out. But when push came to shove… I'd rather take the risk."

"You ended up here. Doesn't that mean it worked?"

"That part, yeah. But it's meant to simply teleport you to your closest kin when you're in danger. Not proximity-wise, but relational. There's not supposed to be any strings attached. But…"

Dean waves his hand. "But?"

"But when I tried to leave just now, I passed out and ended up back here, with you."

Silence descends over the both of them once again. Dean seems troubled, glancing between the hallway and the door, before he comments, "I came in here and found you on the floor. You woke up not long after that." He grimaces. "So what's wrong with it?"

Sam gnaws at the corner of his cuticle. "I… don't know. And I don't have any of my stuff here to figure it out." He pushes himself away from the table and towards a bookshelf. "I left some resources here, in case…. Well, maybe it'll have something, but it's not…"

"There's not a lot of witchy stuff kept in the bunker."

Hesitantly, Sam takes a glance behind him at his brother, who has his arms crossed in front of his chest but otherwise seems un-hostile. He nods, more of an upward jerk of his chin, before he turns back towards the bookshelf, fingers tracing across the titles in order to find what he's looking for. In some ways, he feels as if he should find a corner to curl up into a ball in, but in others, he finds a flickering sense of determination to solve this problem. That's always been his go-to in confusing situations: problem solving. 

Dean lingers behind him for a minute before he announces, all gusto and put-upon resolve, "Well, it's 6 a.m., which is far too early to deal with this, so I'm going to go make some coffee-"

This news sends warning signs rattling through Sam's head. He jerks around, book in hand, to stare at Dean. "It's what time?"

Dean's eyebrows furrow. "6?"

Sam feels a little dizzy. "What date?"

"June 19th. 2023." Dean takes a half-step towards him. "Dude, what's wrong?"

Sam stumbles forward and yanks out a chair to fall into, the book clattering beside him on the table. He rubs his hand against his face and eyes before he glances up at Dean, deadpan look on his face, and says, tone hard, "I left on November 19th. 2022."

* * *

"Now, there are two crucial points in the devising of a spell. First-"

"I'm pretty sure there's more than two."

"Well,  _ yes _ , Samuel, but that's not the point, is it? What I'm sayin' is that there's two parts of utmost importance. Ingredients, of course, and the structure of the words. Ingredients, well, I'm sure a big lug like you can picture that one out, but words-"

"Are important. I've had my own fair share of mispronunciation mistakes. I get it."

"It's more than that. Word choice is crucial to the performance of a spell. You choose a word with the wrong meaning, and poof-"

"The spell goes wrong. This is basic stuff, Rowena."

"Well, you also have to remember that a word may have two or more meanings. That can affect your spell just as quickly as a bad ingredient can."

"I'll… keep that in mind…. Why are you teaching me all of this now?"

"I just feel like you'll need it, that's all, lad."

"Meaning you think I'll mess it up."

"Anything is possible, Samuel, even when you think you've got it exactly right. The smallest details will decide whether your spell will work. It's always easier to mess up a spell than it is to get out of a messed up spell." 

"So what do I do if I mess up?"

"Hope the spirits are on your side that day."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & Kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> If you want to come talk to me about Witch Sam, or about supernatural in general, visit me at nephilimjack on tumblr and send me an ask! I have many words.


End file.
